Humanist Counter-Theory in the Age of Misandry

The morality of punishing the innocent

There is a current movement with the expressed intent of reducing or eliminating sexual assault against women by changing current law to make it easier to convict those accused of committing sexual assaults.

The proposed changes would reduce and/or eliminate due process protections currently afforded to the accused in the United States. The war to change these laws is primarily being waged on college campuses by forcing these institutions to eliminate due process when handling cases alleging sexual assault. On many campuses the accused does not have the right to counsel, may not have the right to present evidence on his own behalf, to call witnesses, or to cross-examine witnesses including his accuser, may only be given limited access to evidence against him, and guilt may be determined by a preponderance of evidence (instead of clear and convincing or beyond reasonable doubt), or simply because the evidence of guilt has the greater probability of being true.

This denial of due process almost assures a conviction that can result in anything from reprimand, to sensitivity classes, to expulsion.

To most of us, the “guilty until proved innocent” attitude towards those accused of any crime is reprehensible. The American system of jurisprudence is founded on the idea that allowing the guilty to go free is preferable to jailing the innocent. But to some, the greater good of stopping violent crime (particularly sex crimes against women) supersedes the rights of the accused to due process. For these persons, the unintended consequence of jailing the innocent, while it may be unfortunate, is perfectly acceptable and morally correct. The moral justification for this can be traced to none other than St. Thomas Aquinas and his justification of killing in self-defense.

Aquinas writes “Nothing hinders one act from having two effects, only one of which is intended, while the other is beside the intention. … Accordingly, the act of self-defense may have two effects: one, the saving of one’s life; the other, the slaying of the aggressor.” He further explains that killing in self-defense is morally acceptable only if there was no intent to kill. In other words, if the killing was an unintentional consequence of defending oneself, even if the killing was foreseeable. He qualifies this by stating that the act of self-defense must be in proportion to the act of aggression. However, if the killing was intentional or disproportionate, even if done in self-defense, it is morally unjustifiable.

The Doctrine (or Principle) of Double Effect requires four conditions described in the New Catholic Encyclopedia (p. 1021):

The act itself must be morally good or at least indifferent.

The agent may not positively will the bad effect but may permit it. If he could attain the good effect without the bad effect he should do so. The bad effect is sometimes said to be indirectly voluntary.

The good effect must flow from the action at least as immediately (in the order of causality, though not necessarily in the order of time) as the bad effect. In other words the good effect must be produced directly by the action, not by the bad effect. Otherwise the agent would be using a bad means to a good end, which is never allowed.

The good effect must be sufficiently desirable to compensate for the allowing of the bad effect.

Thus it becomes permissible under this doctrine to strengthen the laws pertaining to sexual assault in order to make it easier to convict and imprison accused perpetrators even if that means that more innocent persons will be convicted and jailed. The intent of this action is to reduce harm to women by reducing the number of sexual assaults by creating an effective deterrent: increasing the likelihood of going to prison.

On the surface, most reasonable persons would likely agree that the conditions are met. In fact, they may well be. It is certainly not immoral to make it easier to gain convictions in order to protect members of society. Provided the intent is not to imprison innocent people, and remains only a by-product, condition two is met. Condition three is met if the imprisonment of innocent men is not the direct cause of the reduction of the number of sexual assaults. The increased likelihood of imprisonment of offenders must be the cause of the reduction. Finally, it must be more desirable to protect women from sexual assault than to imprison innocent men. Whether or not this condition is met may be dependent on perspective and the perception of how many women will be protected vs. the number of innocent men imprisoned.

However, what this doctrine does not address is whether or not the proposed action will be effective in producing the desired outcome. Does increasing the likelihood of prison serve as an effective deterrent to sexual assault? In other words, will this actually reduce sexual assault? The doctrine only addresses the intent of the act, not the effectiveness.

For instance, it is acceptable under this doctrine for a physician to administer a potentially lethal dose of pain medication to a dying patient in order to alleviate the pain, even if the physician knows the medication might kill the patient. But what if the medication does not alleviate pain because the patient has developed a tolerance to its pain-relieving effects? The doctor has now increased the risk of death without producing the desired effect; pain relief. Is that moral? By the same token, if increasing the likelihood on imprisonment of offenders does not decrease the number of sexual assaults, but only increases the likelihood of incarcerating the innocent, is it moral? More to the point, is it moral to institute such a policy without being reasonably assured that the policy will produce the intended result, especially when the harm done is almost assured?

It could further be argued that because the consequence of imprisoning the innocent can be foreseen, the intent cannot be denied. The knowledge that a harmful effect will occur as a result of committing an act is tantamount to intentionally bringing about the harmful effect. The Doctrine of Double Effect flows from another Catholic doctrine of doing vs. allowing harm. This can be expanded through a discussion of deontological ethics.[1]

Agent-centered deontology draws a distinction between causing, preventing, and allowing. It is impermissible to cause an evil act, but generally permissible to fail to act to prevent one. It would be morally wrong to push a child into the street in front of a car (causing). There may or may not be a moral obligation to stop that same child from running into the street (preventing). Allowings occur when the action taken involves removing a defense that would have otherwise been in place to prevent evil from occurring, and when the removal of the defense is not the direct cause of harm. Allowings are permitted only when the defense removed had previously been provided and when the removal of that defense allows another good to occur.

When one removes legal defenses that protect the accused in order to allow increased convictions intended to deter sexual assault, one is removing a defense previously provided by law in order to do good and since the removal of that defense is not a direct assault upon the innocent (although it allows the direct assault to occur), it would be permitted under this deontological ethic.

A somewhat weaker defense of changing the laws that protect the innocent is that the change does not cause the evil, it merely enables others to commit the evil (send the innocent to prison). Therefore those who change the law are not morally responsible for sending the innocent to prison. That this statement would be seen by many as morally reprehensible is a criticism of agent-centered deontology as well as the Doctrine of Double Effects.

A second type of deontology is patient-centered and concerned with rights, not duties. At its very foundation, the fundamental right is the right not to be “used only as a means for producing good consequences without consent… It is a right against being used by another for the user’s or others’ benefit.” (Alexander & Moore, 2012). Ethical dilemmas handled one way under agent-centered deontology might be handled differently under patient-centered deontology. The difference is the forbidden practice of using a person without that person’s consent.

In agent-centered deontology, rightness is derived from the mental state of the agent or the agent’s actions in causing the harm. In patient-centered deontology the justification of the results rests on whether or not the victim (the harmed person) is the means of producing the results. Further, in patient-centered deontology, providing aid to another is not required, nor is there a right to receive aid from another. This is derived from the concept of using. Using can only be viewed as a positive act, not an inaction.

So in the example above, the child who runs into the street has no right to be saved, nor does the person who sees the child have an obligation to save it. Consequentialist ethics operate in both versions of deontology. Consequences help to define right and wrong actions in agent-centered deontology and define the moral norms used to guide action in patient-centered deontology.

An agent-centered deontology could be used to justify a change in laws to permit increased likelihood of conviction for sexual assault, including the likelihood of wrongful convictions, if it also reduces the number of sexual assaults. But under a system of patient-centered deontology, it could be argued that this is not justified. First, the goal of reducing the number of sexual assaults could be described as aiding potential victims. Under this system, no one has a right to aid. Second, it could be argued that the wrongfully convicted are being used without their consent to aid potential victims. Consequentialist ethics might intervene in the first case, but not in the second.

The consequence of sexual assault could be said to be so abhorrent that a moral norm be established that it in the interest of all to deter sexual assault. However, that norm would be overruled by using the innocent without their consent to prevent sexual assault. Thus a patient-centered approach would not permit this type of change in the law and those arguing for such a change would be arguing from the standpoint of agent-center deontology.

However, there is a case in which a patient-based ethic might permit such a change in the law. That is if it could be shown that more sexual assaults are prevented than innocents incarcerated or that sexual assault is a less desirable outcome than incarceration of innocents. Take the example of a trolley running loose down a mine shaft towards five workers trapped on the tracks. The trolley cannot be stopped and if left alone will kill all five workers. It is possible to pull a switch and divert the trolley onto a different track, but doing so would kill one worker who would not otherwise be killed.

Pulling the switch could be viewed as permissible if the five lives are considered more valuable than the one. However, because it is a positive act pulling the switch is not obligatory, simply because it is permissible does not relieve culpability. A person has the right not to act and cannot be held culpable for inaction under the patient-center ethic. But once a person acts, the person becomes culpable. So while a change to the law might be permissible, that permission does not relieve culpability. The actor is culpable for killing the one, but would not have been culpable for allowing the five to die. This is based on the separateness of persons.

Each person is a separate entity and wrongs (or rights) cannot be added together to form a greater wrong (or right). It follows that the rights of the majority do not supersede the rights of the minority which is the basis for constitutional law. Simply because the majority vote for a law, that law cannot be enacted if it violates the rights guaranteed under the constitution.

Interestingly, those who argue against sexual assault, argue from the standpoint of patient-centered deontology. No one has the right to use another person without that person’s consent. This is the very foundation for the argument against sexual assault when one uses rights as the basis for the argument. It would seem a contradiction that these same persons would switch their ethical stance from patient-centered to agent-based when the context suits them.

Consequentialist questions remain whether one approaches the issue from the standpoint of the Doctrine of Double Effect and/or agent-based deontology or patient-centered deontology. Will making it easier to gain convictions provide a sufficient deterrent to sexual assault to justify the inevitable increase in wrongful convictions? Without answering this question, the entire argument is moot. Good intentions is simply not enough. As they say, the road to Hell is paved with them.

The Doctrine of Double Effect uses intent as the basis for morality of action and does not appear to consider actions where the outcome is uncertain. Agent-based deontology at least uses consequence as a standard in defining right and wrong. Patient-centered deontology uses moral norms to help define rights. But what happens when we don’t know what the outcome of an action will be?

There are two likely outcomes (consequences) of strengthening the laws pertaining to sexual assault in order to make it easier to obtain convictions. One is that there is a reduction in sexual assaults committed due to the imprisonment of more offenders, paired with an increase in convictions of the innocent. The other is that there is no change in the number of sexual assaults committed although more offenders are imprisoned, paired with an increase in convictions of the innocent. The latter would likely be seen as unethical and immoral when held up to nearly any ethical philosophy.

There is little evidence to support that the first will occur. Many of the arguments against the death penalty are based on evidence that fails to support the reasoning that stiffer penalties results in effective deterrents. That would make the former outcome unethical as well. Therefore, the only truly ethical position is to not change these laws in any manner that would result in a greater number of convictions of the wrongly accused. Any law designed to reduce the number of sexual assaults should be evidence-based and include provisions designed to prevent wrongful convictions.

[1] Deontological ethics is a system of ethics that holds that some choices cannot be justified by their consequences. What makes a choice right is its conformity to moral norms. In agent-centered deontology, agents have permissions and obligations. Obligations may be positive (parents are obliged to protect their own children), while others are negative (doctors take an oath to do no harm). Permissions are acts permitted to certain agents, but not others (a parent would be permitted to save its own child even at the cost of death to more children than could otherwise have been saved while another agent would be required to save as many children as possible). Agent-centered deontology is duty-based, while patient-centered deontology is rights-based.

I'm a chef. I'm a shrink. For better or for worse, I'm married with 4 grandkids (that's the better part). Over the last few years I have come to believe that feminism is a hate movement, not the benevolent force I used to understand it to be.

Elsewhere on AVfM

This is no different from a legal witch hunt. An additional thing to consider is the change in the number of false sexual assault allegations. Since the law effectively punishes the accused on the say-so of the accuser, the latter has the incentive to use it for any trivial reason from not having to pay the cab fare to taking a personal revenge, etc.

OneHundredPercentCotton

These laws are ALREADY in place for accusers under the age of 12. (The only thing left off in this article are Rape Shield Laws that hide serial accuser’s prior accusations).

Don’t think for one minute these laws don’t apply to you – every single one of these were used to convict my innocent son. Hearsay(TRIPLE hearsay in my son’s case), lack of evidence, exculpatory evidence ignored, rape shield and medical confidentiality laws – the whole unConstitutional package – it’s ALL perfectly legal now. In my son’s case, as a juvenile he wasn’t even allowed a jury trial.

For the last 15 years I have tried to sound the alarm about these laws and have been batted down time and time again with “Shut Up, you make REAL victims feel bad”.

I think men are hardwired to believe the worst about “other” men.

Just this morning my nephew posted a sex offender photo of a scary looking dude working at a local restaurant remarking “Keep your daughters very near”.

This from a guy who KNOWS his own cousin was a victim of a false accusation and had his own “scary picture” posted online for the useless titillation of the “good folks”.

These laws have STARTED with “saving children” and are now encroaching upon saving the BIGGER children -ADULT WOMEN.

“Children don’t lie” was a bumper sticker from the ’90’s. “Women don’t lie” – you know yourself how this presumption is being heavily promoted.

If you think it can’t happen to a good guy like you – keep in mind that’s what EVERY innocent person thought.
_______________________________________

The Elimination of Constitutional Rights – Paul Stuckle

Prosecutors and the child saving industry have convinced the legislature that merely creating hysteria is not enough to insure conviction for those accused. In addition, rights originally created in our constitution to protect the criminal defendants must be eliminated.

The Rules Have Changed to Secure Convictions

All across our nation, state legislatures have supported child advocacy special interest groups. The following illustrates how constitutional rights have been taken away in child sexual assault trials:

No Right to Confront Your Accuser

Criminal law codes have been rewritten to where in many cases, the child accuser does not have to appear in court and face the accused. Instead, the state can offer the child’s testimony through a video tape made by agents of the prosecution.

“Hearsay Evidence”

Hearsay is defined as “a statement, other than one made by the declarant while testifying at the trial or hearing, offered in evidence to prove the truth of the matter asserted.” (Tex. Rules. Evid. 803 (2)). In Layman’s terms, “Hearsay” evidence is when a witness testifies about something they do not personally know, but were told by someone else. Hearsay is considered unreliable and is normally inadmissible as evidence against an accused. In child abuse cases however, hearsay evidence is admitted as evidence of guilt. A so called “outcry” witness can testify as to what a child supposedly said to them regarding the alleged abuse.

“Syndrome Evidence” Is Admissible Against the Accused

In most states, the prosecution can have an expert witness testify that the child is suffering from “Child Sexual Abuse Accommodation Syndrome”(CSAAS). This psychological “mumble jumble” is an unscientific theory of supposed traits of abused children. The psychologist who came up with this syndrome many years ago has since indicated that this theory is not reliable evidence in a court of law. Prosecutors do not care! This junk science makes its appearance in courtrooms across the country daily.

With Syndrome Evidence, the State Replaces Its Lack of Real Proof with Speculation

CSAAS theorizes that because an alleged victim is supposedly demonstrating certain behavioral patterns that he/she must have actually been abused. Unfortunately, a big problem with this and other syndromes is that the character traits offered to show abuse are also common for non-abused children. If the child has been crying, he/she must have been abused. If the child has nightmares, he/she must have been abused. If the child is withdrawn, he/she must have been abused. If the child is outgoing, he/she must have been abused. If the child is happy around the accused, it’s because the child enjoyed the abuse. The list of factors goes on forever. But to a jury, when an expert witness is connecting typical childhood behavior with indicators of abuse, the testimony is extremely damaging to the falsely accused.

Convictions without Physical Evidence

Our prisons are full of persons who have been convicted of child molestation without any physical evidence ever introduced against them at trial. In other words, the typical evidence in which the state offers to convict a defendant, such as body fluids, blood, semen, hair, DNA, are not introduced at trial to link the accused to a crime.

Medical nurses and employees whose livelihoods depend upon their contracts with child advocacy centers will give opinions that a child was abused. Failure to give the right opinion will mean the contract is not renewed. These opinions from medical “experts” will say the findings are “consistent with” sexual abuse. Of course, “consistent with” is not a true medical diagnosis. This testimony, as demonstrated by a competent defense attorney will reveal the findings given as “consistent with abuse” are just as “inconsistent with abuse”.

Prosecutors Secure Convictions by Manipulating the Juries’ Fear of Releasing a Child Molester Back Into the Community.

Instead of physical and medical evidence, the falsely accused are convicted upon theories, inferences, and speculation. Prosecutors secure convictions by manipulating the juror’s fear of releasing a child molester back into the community. This fear will be combined with hearsay, expert witness “syndrome evidence”, misleading medical testimony, and the biased opinions of child advocacy investigators.

To support this speculation, a biased child protective services caseworker will produce a videotaped interview of the child. This biased interviewer will use leading, suggestive, and coached questions to easily obtain an “admission” from a child. Many times the child does not make a statement that abuse occurred, but merely agrees with the adult authority figure who informs the child of the abuse.

After an outcry, it is easy to find witnesses who can place the accused in circumstances in which he was alone with the alleged victim.

I agree, CSAAS is not scientific and should never be permitted to be used in a court of law. It belongs in a museum right next to recovered memories. But courts have found a variety of reasons to allow it to be used. I’m wondering whether there is any research to confirm or refute it. Perhaps I’ll look, if I get some time. Could be another interesting article.

OneHundredPercentCotton

When Dean introduced us to The Woozle Effect I almost posted about what is probably the #1 Woozle Effect in play today: the dreaded Sex Predator scare.

…except that topic is always like talking to a brick wall.

For all the “They ALWAYS reoffend” screaming headlines and pontificating by LE officials – not one study anywhere at any time shows anything other than Sex Offenders have the LOWEST recidivism rate for that crime, especially for those that have had therapy.

All these years of million dollar social parriah registries, zoning laws, hunting and hounding men to living under bridges and into the outskirts of society, public notices and Halloween decorating bans – hasn’t changed the crime stats one iota.

Not one child has EVER been the victim of a registered sex offender, but every season, right on cue, out come the torches, pitch forks and gullible village idiots. It’s truly the 14th Century all over again.

It would be ONE thing if you KNEW for certain every man on those lists was actually guilty, or reasonably guilty of the crime – but men convicted under these hysteria driven legal standards? Wrongful convictions are only limited by the number of people willing to make a false accusation, because such an accusation is an invariable WIN for prosecutors.

OneHundredPercentCotton

CORRECTION: Not one child has EVER been the victim of a registered sex offender ON HALLOWEEN, but every season…

No offense TDOM, but I think your reference to Aquinas and his theory of self-defense and war is a bad comparison.

Going through your arguments about his four points in comparison to feminist sexual assault prevention theory definitely falls flat in my eyes. Aquinas had a more balanced view of self-defense though I don’t agree with his assessment either. However, if feminism actually did follow his steps, men would still have much closer access to what due process should be then what current college witch hunts allow.

And witch hunts are exactly what they are. There is no logic in this unless you realize that they are merely defending their turf on owning the minds of our supposedly brightest youth, and indoctrinating them until they can potentially make college campuses exclusively the realm of women. If that is how you view them, then their logic is very sound, and evil to the core.

Honestly, the comparison to Aquinas, to me anyways, falls flat and makes no sense in the face of feminist attempts at jurisprudence. By the way, I am not Catholic, and I think Aquinas’s literature is more rambling then anything. I don’t mean it as an insult, but in his time he was arguing for a host of illiterate people who did not have the resources or treasure troves of knowledge that we have available today. As smart as he was, I don’t think he was right on a lot of it, and I think he was trying to justify a lot of connections both spiritual, militaristic, government, and war for the Catholic church. However noble he may have been.

Still, he makes a whole host of feminist gender studies professors look like crack smoking morons; but so to does a baby.

I refer to Aquinas because his argument laid the foundation for the ethical system often used to justify the legal changes that I’m addressing. I’m tracing the ethics of unintended consequences of intended actions. As far as I could tell, this was first addressed directly by Aquinas. I am responding to those feminists who justify changing the law by claiming that 1) it serves the greater good, and 2) that wrongful convictions may be are regrettable and unintended even if inevitable. The Doctrine of Double Effect and agent-centered deontology are both ethical systems that support that position. My purpose is to show that these systems are inadequate as justifications.

Hmm, IDK, I have not read Aquinas in a long time. However, I guess I am not sure if he is the starting point or not. Do you have a reference?

I get the deontological ethics system in your argument. However, I find it hard that feminists would use Aquinas, let alone read him since he is a man, and not some brainwashed feminist “scholar” and her work via drug induced hallucinations that their arguments would work.

I don’t get the feeling that they are looking at this dear colleage BS as a woman=agent; thereby making her own choice to cut down an innocent because it is better to do so then let a guilty person free. That requires guilt, they favor all women be viewed guiltless no matter what they do. Unless they kill another woman. Case in point: http://www.the-spearhead.com/2013/08/05/alyce-laviolette-domestic-violence/

I think their most likely long shot source of inspiration is mein kampf (forgive me for any feeling of plagiarism, lack of originality, or overuse of this book you may feel but it does seem relevant to these laws given the history) or another, where they can justify any woman as an agency-less agent with the ability to isolate, and destroy any man because they are filled with hatred. Willing to turn the world upside down, and risk everything for their little social engineering experiment; the consequences of which, and the lives they will have destroyed be damned.

I can’t remember where I found it credited to Aquinas, but here’s a reference that credits Aquinas with the “most important aspects” of the DDE. It’s also presents a history of how it has evolved since Aquinas into its present form.

Most feminism is based on utilitarian ethics, but the argument I am responding to is a better fit with the DDE and agent-centered deontology. I have yet to speak with a feminist who knows enough about philosophy and ethics to know that. But if they did, they would have to quote men because for the most part, it was men who developed those lines of reasoning.

The whole woman as agent/nonagent argument is a whole nother article.

KeanoReeves

1. One of the reasons women want this law is because THEY CANNOT BE JAILED. Let us have laws which jail a person up to 100 years on the say so of a military man. After all, they die for the nation and their word is GOD. See how women howl.

2. This is NOT the first time such laws are passed. Whenever such laws are passed, a tyrant emerges. ALWAYS. Imagine a Don stepping up who, for a payment can get you arrested or not arrested. You cannot do a shit. Judge is honest? He is charged with assault and placed in jail! You want to screw a woman? – accuse her father, brother, etc. Judges will be compromised to the Mafia. Remember the prohibition?

3. The GOVT will lose all control. A-L-L. Women, for whom the laws are intended will be the most affected as Don-wars will start.

Falsely accusing women themselves ARE the don. External dons are not needed. And no, it won’t be the women who will be MOST affected. Some of them will be affected, sure, but that’s nothing compared to the effect on the men. Because to affect any woman (that is, at most to make her feel sad), at least one man will be losing everything including his freedom and reputation, and sometimes even his life.

While getting rid of due process may result in more ‘convictions’, it never reduces actual crimes committed.

‘Citizen X’ is a really good film, that exposes how a ‘criminal justice’ system works in a totalitarian state. Its based on the serial killer Andrei Chikatilo, who killed 56 people between 1978 and 1992 in the Soviet Union.
What I took away from it the most was how actually incompetent the Soviet police were with stopping actual crime, as opposed to just being agents of control and repression. The state was so concerned with maintaining appearances and denying that serial killers could exist in a socialist paradise, they wouldn’t let the general public know there was a killer on the loose. They didn’t even have the basic techniques for solving such complex crimes.

Silly things like ‘due process’ don’t just protect the innocent, they also actually force police to be professional , competent, and thorough. I can’t help but think that Feminists being totalitarians, are only concerned with appearances of maintaining their ‘rape culture’ narrative and instilling fear and obedience in men. The same way the Stalinists were always uncovering more elaborate ‘plots’ to kill their dear leader no matter how much control they had, Feminists will always be looking for evidence of ‘patriarchal oppression’.

Removing due process will only result in more false accusations and more charges being dropped, which will only result in less victims coming forward. Add to that the waste of police resources and you get no reduction in rape. Our rights are being stripped away from us in the name of ‘public safety’ and the ‘greater good’.

Legion

Similar accounts of life under the Third Reich, and the South African Nationalists, exist. The elimination of due process inevitably leads to the police becoming brutal, and, with that brutality, exceptionally inept.

No study has ever been done to prove that dropping a number of cases of false accusations or punishing the false accusers appropriately makes the actual victims reluctant to come forward. This is nothing but a bald faced feminist lie, and a myth. Just like the rape culture itself.

While getting rid of due process may result in more ‘convictions’, it never reduces actual crimes committed.

‘Citizen X’ is a really good film, that exposes how a ‘criminal justice’ system works in a totalitarian state. Its based on the serial killer Andrei Chikatilo, who killed 56 people between 1978 and 1992 in the Soviet Union.

What I took away from it the most was how actually incompetent the Soviet police were with stopping actual crime, as opposed to just being agents of control and repression. The state was so concerned with maintaining appearances and denying that serial killers could exist in a socialist paradise, they wouldn’t let the general public know there was a killer on the loose. Most of what they did involved pinning crimes on ‘the usual suspects’ through torture and their limitless powers. They didn’t even have the basic techniques for solving such complex crimes.

Silly things like ‘due process’ don’t just protect the innocent, they also actually force police to be professional , competent, and thorough. I can’t help but think that Feminists being totalitarians, are only concerned with appearances of maintaining their ‘rape culture’ narrative and instilling fear and obedience in men. The same way the Stalinists were always uncovering more elaborate ‘plots’ to kill their dear leader no matter how much control they had, Feminists will always be looking for evidence of ‘patriarchal oppression’.

Removing due process will only result in more false accusations and more charges being dropped, which will only result in less victims coming forward. Add to that the waste of police resources and you get no reduction in rape. Our rights are being stripped away from us in the name of ‘public safety’ and the ‘greater good’.

If it works for sexual assault, why not institute “preponderance of evidence” for real crimes? Or, is our system of justice only concerned with women?

MGTOW-man

Now, now, Emelio, don’t be too brutally honest or brash. Only someone that “hates women” would notice and dare say a thing about how women are special AND equal. You are supposed to say how oppressed and not helped they are. You don’t love women! Boo on you!

An issue not addressed is the triviality of most ‘sexual assault’. Harm is not simply 1:1.

Even if ‘guilty’, the punitive measures imposed may vastly outweigh the ‘harm’ done. To the non guilty, even the accusation contains significant harm.

Nightwing1029

“Otherwise the agent would be using a bad means to a good end, which is never allowed.”
This is what actually will happen.
More men will be gotten rid of, than women are protected.
Because at any given moment, changing the laws to protect just women, allows for abuse of the system.

MGTOW-man

Morality? Perhaps some women aren’t as moral as they are selfish (and do not even now it). Their selfishness will interfere, skew, control and superimpose anything society needs when compared.

The self-importance that these type of women must feel will block out stuff that protect other people, primarlly men and boys.

Folks, it will only get worse before it gets better….IF it gets better. To get better we need to get the attention of all men and boys everywhere and get them to stop being inwitting abbetters of world destruction.

For, isn’t the fate of the world more important than all other things combined?

Kant is the basis for all of deontology, both agent-centered and patient-based. Nothing wrong with Kant per se. the DDE was developed about 500 years prior to Kant.

I do not think it was intended to justify the persecution of heresey because the persecution and execution of so-called heretics was an intended outcome, not an unintended side effect.

theoutside

“I do not think it was intended to justify the persecution of heresey because the persecution and execution of so-called heretics was an intended outcome, not an unintended side effect.”

Ah yes, of course. I wonder what I was thinking…

donzaloog

Great article. As I see it, putting innocent men in jail is the whole point of these attempts to remove due process. It’s all part of the plan to get men out of the education system (college) and removed them from the voting class (felons can’t vote iirc).

I’m no conspiracy theorist, but this is the only logical answer I can come up with. You have to have an utter hatred for men as class to remove even the right to defend ourselves in court from us. The ultimate goal is to make all heterosexual sex between men and women illegal or at least very unsavory.

Men will not be allowed to flirt with, pursue or even interact with women in any way without the threat of jail time hanging over their heads. This system is designed by severely damaged and broken people who thinks everyone should be as miserable as they are.

I don’t think its a conspiracy to jail men. That’s an ‘unintended consequence’, after all people in prison can’t pay taxes and support the system.

Feminists just want to make sure that women have all the power in personal interactions between men and women. Remember the ‘personal is political’. Actually feminists turned that on its head too. Its more like the political is personal, ie mass produced group think oriented ‘persons’ that accept dogma wholesale.

OneHundredPercentCotton

You don’t know much about the For Profit Prison System, I see.

For Profit means Judges, shareholders and politicians are PROFITTING from putting people in prison.

Why do you think the US has the HUGEST prison population, MALE prison population the world has ever seen if it weren’t profitable?

OneHundredPercentCotton

The private corrections industry has delivered for investors. The number of inmates in for-profit prisons throughout the U.S. rose 44 percent in the past decade. BlackRock Inc. (BLK) and Renaissance Technologies LLC are among dozens of money-management firms that have invested in the business.
As of March 31, BlackRock reported holding stakes worth more than $254 million in Geo and $236 million in Corrections Corp. (CXW), while Renaissance disclosed owning about $39 million of Geo shares and about $36 million in Corrections Corp. stock, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Geo has more than doubled since December 2011, while Corrections Corp. has risen 87 percent, both outpacing a 33 percent gain for the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index. Representatives of BlackRock and Renaissance declined to comment.

The for profit prison system was a consequence of mass incarceration and the inability to finance such systems, not the other way round. Judges, shareholders and politicians may profit from such enterprises, but such ‘profit’ ultimately comes from taxpayers, and there is a finite amount of taxpayers money to be had. Private prisons in themselves do not add much economic value to society, and they are still the minority of prisons.

Even in Soviet Russia the Gulag was never very economically productive, and those people were worked to death by the millions. A lot of the public infrastructure built was shoddy and didn’t work.(go figure)

I see what you are saying, I am just not a big fan of conspiracy theories. That’s why I am not left leaning any more. Usually the more banal and depressing answer is correct.

OneHundredPercentCotton

You’re saying the more banal and depressing answer is that American men are the most criminally inclined human beings on the planet, more than Russia, China and North Korea COMBINED?

OneHundredPercentCotton

You’re saying the more banal and depressing answer is that American men are the most criminally inclined human beings on the planet, more than Russia, China and North Korea COMBINED?

Sally

My son is also in prison from a false accusation, Cotton. He too did not have a jury trial, but a bench trial. He is serving time in a private, for profit prison in God forsaken, corrupted Louisiana!

We’ve been SO ignorant, and naive….not knowing what we were being swept up into! The DOC is a world that our family had nothing to do with, and everything spun out of control! How we even thought his lawyer knew how to defend him against these accusations before a black, female judge! My son is white. I’m getting an education here, but its too late I’m afraid!!

I’m a Mother of a destroyed man, and get slammed if I get angry at his accuser!

Sally, mother of a good son

OneHundredPercentCotton

I always truly feel like a swift kick to the gut whenever I read those words from another mother.

God help us, Sally, for God knows…nobody else will.

I hope you are able to visit your son often and let him know your love and belief in him are forever unflagging.

Welcome. Another mother of a good son

Stu

So you don’t even have a right to trial by jury now. Great. Constitution really is toilet paper isn’t it.

The ultimate goal is to give women control of male/female relationships. the broader the definition of rape and the easier it becomes to gain conviction, the more necessary it will become for men to subordinate themselves to women in order to stay out of prison.

I’m not much of a conspiracy theorist, but this is straight out of the radical feminist playbook. All it takes is to get the theory into women’s studies courses for it to become legitimized as feminist theory. Even if it is unpalatable to most people, a watered down version will become acceptable. The the process is the one that states “all men are rapists” to “all men use rape” to “all men are potential rapists” to “men can stop rape.” Rape becomes a crime committed only by men and the definition of rape can then be broadened in an effort to stop rape. This isn’t necessarily conspiracy, it is coincidence which is what happens when individuals that think alike begin to act alike.

Rape is rampant, culturally acceptable and commonplace*.
There is a Patriarchy.

No need for a conspiracy. All this behaviour suddenly seems logical. Women are being raped by the millions, every moment we speak. We must do something. Anything. This must be stopped. Panic. Imperative. Thus, strip the accused of a right. Dammit, it’s not working. Take another. God damn the surveys are coming back worse…

You get the gist.

donzaloog

I think my comment got grabbed by the spam filter.

pjanus

Even in Soviet Russia the Gulag was never very economically productive, and those people were worked to death by the millions. A lot of the public infrastructure built was shoddy and didn’t work.(go figure)

I see what you are saying, I am just not a big fan of conspiracy theories. That’s why I am not left leaning any more. Usually the more banal and depressing answer is correct.

How? All I am saying is there is no central plan in the US like there was in the Soviet Union to imprison people for political purposes. Stalin wanted to remove and depopulate entire groups of people from certain areas, and eliminate certain groups in their entirety. He wanted all of society to be in the grip of fear.

Our policies are the result of shortsighted politicians, not a singular dictator. Comparing the terror of Stalin to the situation in the US is laughable and reminds me of leftist conspiratorial thinking.

OneHundredPercentCotton

True that – Evil Stalin didn’t imprison NEARLY as many Russian men as the benevolent US now imprisons it’s male population…or China…or North Korea…COMBINED.

The were The Evil Empire, after all, and WE are the good guys who just happen to have our male population suddenly turn bad, bad, bad .

Many more people passed through the Gulag than the US prison system for the simple fact that millions DIED in the gulag. The turnover rate was MUCH higher(due to death).

Yes, at its height the gulag had about 2 million inmates, but that does not include those who had been ‘freed’ only to work in labor colonies near camps as well as those who had been forcibly resettled from Russia to Siberia.

I am not saying that that the way the system handles false rape accusations is great. I actually think it sucks, a lot. I agree with you. It super duper sucks. I just don’t there is some grand design on the part of our government to imprison millions of innocent men.

For the most part the politicians that implement these policies are just stupid fuckwits that are now actually trying to reverse their actions because they realize imprisoning so many people is EXPENSIVE.

Stalin on the other hand, was no fuckwit. Gulags were nothing more than execution centers that paid for their own upkeep with the use of slave labor. Stalin wanted to industrialize Russia and get as many people out of the country and into the cities as fast as possible. Gulags were ruthless ways of crushing the peasant resistance(there was a lot) who were hiding grain and killing their own livestock in protest.

I know how fucked up the US criminal justice system can be. I just think it does a disservice to our cause when we make it sound like the US government has a deliberate policy of deliberately imprisoning males by the millions. It simply isn’t true. The US government is not trying to rapidly industrialize like the Soviet Union. We sound like radical leftist conspiracy theorists when we say stuff like that.

According to the New Yorker there are MORE prisoners than were in the Gulag, and some pretty compelling reading that blows holes in your “We don’t wanna sound like conspiracy nuts” thinking.

No one said we are following in the footsteps of Stalinist Russia – we have our OWN methods and ends justifying the means.

Our incarceration rates are COUPLED with our “on paper” rates, parole, probation, forever registries now charging the convicted money to maintain to mask the enormous reality from tax payers, which adds up to a LOT of males denied voting rights and gun rights.

I’m sure that’s ALLLL just by happy coincidence.

OneHundredPercentCotton

New Yorker: Over all, there are now more people under “correctional supervision” in America—more than six million—than were in the Gulag Archipelago under Stalin at its height. That city of the confined and the controlled, Lockuptown, is now the second largest in the United States.

The accelerating rate of incarceration over the past few decades is just as startling as the number of people jailed: in 1980, there were about two hundred and twenty people incarcerated for every hundred thousand Americans; by 2010, the number had more than tripled, to seven hundred and thirty-one. No other country even approaches that. In the past two decades, the money that states spend on prisons has risen at six times the rate of spending on higher education.

A conservative is a liberal who’s been mugged; a liberal is a conservative who’s been indicted; and a passionate prison reformer is a conservative who’s in one.

OneHundredPercentCotton

The scale and the brutality of our prisons are the moral scandal of American life. Every day, at least fifty thousand men—a full house at Yankee Stadium—wake in solitary confinement, often in “supermax” prisons or prison wings, in which men are locked in small cells, where they see no one, cannot freely read and write, and are allowed out just once a day for an hour’s solo “exercise.” (Lock yourself in your bathroom and then imagine you have to stay there for the next ten years, and you will have some sense of the experience.) Prison rape is so endemic—more than seventy thousand prisoners are raped each year—that it is routinely held out as a threat, part of the punishment to be expected. The subject is standard fodder for comedy, and an uncoöperative suspect being threatened with rape in prison is now represented, every night on television, as an ordinary and rather lovable bit of policing. The normalization of prison rape—like eighteenth-century japery about watching men struggle as they die on the gallows—will surely strike our descendants as chillingly sadistic, incomprehensible on the part of people who thought themselves civilized.

OneHundredPercentCotton

The scale and the brutality of our prisons are the moral scandal of American life. Every day, at least fifty thousand men—a full house at Yankee Stadium—wake in solitary confinement, often in “supermax” prisons or prison wings, in which men are locked in small cells, where they see no one, cannot freely read and write, and are allowed out just once a day for an hour’s solo “exercise.” (Lock yourself in your bathroom and then imagine you have to stay there for the next ten years, and you will have some sense of the experience.) Prison rape is so endemic—more than seventy thousand prisoners are raped each year—that it is routinely held out as a threat, part of the punishment to be expected. The subject is standard fodder for comedy, and an uncoöperative suspect being threatened with rape in prison is now represented, every night on television, as an ordinary and rather lovable bit of policing. The normalization of prison rape—like eighteenth-century japery about watching men struggle as they die on the gallows—will surely strike our descendants as chillingly sadistic, incomprehensible on the part of people who thought themselves civilized.

OneHundredPercentCotton

No more chilling document exists in recent American life than the 2005 annual report of the biggest of three correctional firms, the Corrections Corporation of America. Here the company (which spends millions lobbying legislators) is obliged to caution its investors about the risk that somehow, somewhere, someone might turn off the spigot of convicted men:

Our growth is generally dependent upon our ability to obtain new contracts to develop and manage new correctional and detention facilities. . . . The demand for our facilities and services could be adversely affected by the relaxation of enforcement efforts, leniency in conviction and sentencing practices or through the decriminalization of certain activities that are currently proscribed by our criminal laws. For instance, any changes with respect to drugs and controlled substances or illegal immigration could affect the number of persons arrested, convicted, and sentenced, thereby potentially reducing demand for correctional facilities to house them.

This is a capitalist enterprise that feeds on the misery of man trying as hard as it can to be sure that nothing is done to decrease that misery.

1) When you look at the case-in-point example from FreeThoughtBlogs, one aspect of the problem that is frequently lost on the manosphere is the possibility of good faith. Among the discussion that goes on, intra-manosphere, there is such a vast position of a-priori assumption of bad faith, that it’s possible to miss good faith when it hits you in the eye.

i.e.: the FreeThoughtBlogs cartoon … taken on good faith, it is NOT NECESSARILY positioning that we should treat men accused of sexual harassment (or some such other) as guilty until proven innocent, it can be merely taken as expressing legitimate frustration with an intractable problem, namely: if a woman is harassed and NAMES her harasser, then people will rush to his defense and attack her for naming him, whereas if she understand this and suffers, announces her suffering, but refuses to name her harasser, she is accused of adjoining the problem, multiplying her suffering.

A person may express frustration with this state of affairs, and not mean by the expression that steps should be taken to diminish the rights of the accused.

2) The trouble lies in that there are two unfortunate outcomes when we don’t stop at a compassionate acknowledgement of the intractability of the problem. One is the knee-jerk reaction from, as per above, the manosphere, which failing to allow for good faith, jumps to the question of “rights of the accused”, this acts as a trigger to many who will recognize the manospherian (or otherwise civil libertarian thinker) as boorish at best, and then fail to take legitimate concerns about civil liberties seriously.

The other is that, on the other side … it is NOT always good faith. Folks do not always stop with an expression of legitimate frustration, or even if they personally do not, they stand by when elected officials respond to these expressions by altering laws and practices in a way that diminishes the rights of the accused.

An MHRA can respond to these expressions compassionately, first of all by putting up a radar for good faith. Presented with a good faith expression of the suffering of women, an MHRA can even agree that if something can be done, it should. But affirming his (or her) civil libertarian stripes, in offering compassion for the problem, suffering and dilemma, and a willingness to cooperate on what may be legitimately done to at least help ameliorate matters, our MHRA may gently but firmly insist, we cannot … can, not diminish the rights of the accused. “I feel and validate your suffering. I will work with you to find if there are ways we can better this. I will not allow that we diminish the rights of the accused. The accused are as often women as they are men, … and women and men, when both accused, remain worthy of dignity”.

firenech

I was a victim of the reduced standards in sexual misconduct cases on college campuses.

I was just doing some reading, and I wonder… If we can’t get sufficient protection from the U.S. Constitution, can we look to our state constitutions for additional legal protection?

I looked up my state constitution, and things like jury trials and due process are held inviolate. But the terms *criminal trial* or *civil trial* do not appear in those clauses. So, presumably, these apply to all proceedings within the state, not just those concerning those trials actually in a courtroom.

Support AVFM!

Buy on Amazon

Anita Sarkeesian doesn't want you to read this book! So if you hate Anita, then why not irritate her by purchasing a copy?

New on Amazon

Don’t miss one of the most controversial books of our time; the unforgettable novel that will trigger feminists, arouse both men and women alike, and stay in the reader’s mind for weeks after the final chapter.

Crazy Ex? Crazy Wife or Girlfriend? Get This Book!

If you think there is nothing you can do about your crazy ex, crazy wife or crazy girlfriend, then you owe it to yourself to go to Amazon and read the reviews on this book.

Debuts in Los Angeles and New York October, 2016

Available in Paperback

Their Angry Creed: The Shocking History of Feminism, and How It Is Destroying Our Way of Life

Paul’s Corner

Advertise at AVFM

IRC Chat

Also Available at Amazon.com

Being a gay male does not mean you have to get yanked around on a feminist leash.